since i must celebrate the “indomitable spirit” that news channels insist exists in the city i live in (we all did go to work today) i can go back to my interminable but absolutely necessary for my own records, log of the movies i have seen.
it must be because it is the time of goodbyes. but a film like ‘dancer, texas pop. 81’ otherwise would have had hardly any effect on me. as so many people close to me for the past few years seem to be packing their bags up to go to the usa for their future studies, the story of four friends from tiny town facing difficult decisions after passing high school, rang too true. some decide to continue to live in the small town while others abandon it to head for big city life in la. the movie was able to evoke the envy, joy, sadness and hope that i see and feel with all these people leaving next month.
so much more honest and watchable that the pretentious arty mess ‘the pillow book’ that we saw today. a japanese woman in hong kong evokes the ghost of her father in all her lovers as she makes them write all over the body. kinky sex, lot of strained devices like picture in picture, slow dissolves, over performing actors and sets and lots of full frontal nudity (including ewan mcgregor- very ugly) . i assume the project proposal must have seemed very avant-garde and theoretical for the funders. sexuality, texts and sub-texts, the act of writing, language, cross cultural references ; and the worst of all the millions of references that i did not catch but suspected existed all through the film. another great example to prove that high brow theory often makes crappy art.
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